Friday, May 8, 2015

When I left Etsy at the end of February, it was because I wanted to join something small where I could have a lot of impact. I did that, becoming a co-founder/CTO at a three person startup in Boston in the online grocery space. Unfortunately that business didn't work out, and closed its doors for good on April 6th. That left me wondering what to do next, and I spent the month of April talking to a lot of companies and exploring opportunities. I wanted to stick with my original plan of joining a small company, but I decided to make post-Series A companies my main focus, to take away some of the risk that I experienced at a seed stage, pre-product company.

I was introduced to Attend by a friend, and the company fit all of my criteria. It has a popular product in the market, has around 30 employees (~5 full-time engineers), just raised a Series A, is in growth mode, and has a great team. There's a ton of potential for me to learn technically there and grow as a leader. Attend provides an event management software product, which is also appealing to me since I like to go to a lot of conferences. The company's current focus is in higher ed, but it's only a matter of time before we tackle the tech conference circuit :-).

I'm starting this coming Tuesday as the "Lead Front End Engineer", although I plan on touching a lot more than just the front-end. That's where the biggest need is right now, but I'm excited to apply my knowledge across all layers of the stack and help grow and scale the business.